Vella
by Baneblade
Summary: Tankers of the Canovian 14th A.C.R. fight behind enemy lines in hopes of stalling the Greenskin hordes massing on the outer rim world of Strenovar VII. Yet unknown to any on the planet, there is a far greater danger waiting for its moment to strike out.


Disclaimer: Warhammer 40,000 and all properties pertaining to said label are owned and manufactured by Games workshop, I take no credit for their creation and product. I do however take credit for the creation of the regiment, all characters, and the planetary body that have been created by me in this story. So read and enjoy!

Vella

(A Warhammer 40,000 Short Story)

Strenovar VII. A desert planet located in the outer rim of Segmentum Ultima. A dustball of a world who's only value to the Imperium of mankind is that it's the richest and largest Promethium Mining and Refining operation in the entire sector. If it weren't for the Orks, huge, grotesquely muscled and green skinned humanoids whose only desire in life is the promise of battle, I would never have heard of this dustball. I am Dexter Verix, of the Canovian 14th Armored Cavalry Regiment, and together with the other companies of our regiment, we are hunters.

Orks are simple minded only living for the here and now of battle, and in a way, that's what makes them more dangerous than any other enemy Humanity faces amongst the stars. They always seem able to field an ungodly amount of soldiers. And each of those soldiers is just as deadly as the last one you just killed. Not much can be said about their looks, with Jaws the width of my chest and teeth that look like they can easily bite me in half. I must admit I never look forward to bringing the wrath of the emperor to them unless I'm sitting some hundred kilometers off. Sadly, this engagement was not one of those few lucky times I got to do that, Vella and I. Vella, a Vanquisher Pattern Leman Russ Battle Tank has been my constant companion through war. Though she was not my first command, she was my last command. Something I'm still very proud of today. She was my chariot through war. She and I have been through many conflicts together. Strenovar VII was only the beginning for us.

"New target, range three hundred meters! Target's speed is twenty two kph. She's heading straight for us Lieutenant!" Gunner Sergeant Niles Luxx, as loyal and grizzled a guardsman as there ever was in the divine Emperor's tank battalions, yet again proved his worth to me by picking out the ugliest piece of Ork engineering on the field. I'm sure that if one of our cogboys saw it they'd have been throwing a fit up to their clockwork idea of he who is eternally enthroned on Terra. Niles Luxx, the only man I've ever trusted, and the only man I bothered to save, was a good soul. No where near as intelligent as most men I've met. But he was still a good enough source for all of my personal needs. I still to this day don't know how he was able to do it, but he was able to slip an entire case of amnesic by the Commissar and load it into our tank.

"Very well Luxx…how many rounds do we have remaining in the locker?" I ask calmly as I slowly pan my vid screen to monitor our target's progress.

"Twenty rounds sir, fourteen Armor Piercing and six High explosive rounds in the locker. We have another sixty rounds in the cargo hauler. Their crew is sounding a bit nervous sir. Anything you'd like me to tell them to keep them calm sir?"

"Nothing Luxx, let the Commissar deal with their moral. Private Steggs! Load an AP round!" I stated calmly, reaching for my canteen in the confined and stifling heat of Vella's Turret while at the same time feebly attempting to loosen my already sweat soaked jacket. It's never been easy to be a tanker, especially when you're stuck on some backwater dust ball at the arse end of the Emperor's domain.

"Round loaded sir!" Came Steggs' eased retort and I grinned, the thrill of making another kill always brought a grin to my face. Being hunters, we liked to see our prey up close and personal. So our Enginseers connected a vid camera to the barrel of Vella just to give us that picture we all so desired. These Orks were no different from any other enemy Vella had faced in her long and venerable career. The only difference is that Orks are the simplest minded and most direct aliens humanity has ever faced, it is this fact alone that makes them more dangerous than all but the most conniving and terrifying enemies. They thirst for war, for violence. Well, if they wanted that, then it was my pleasure to deliver it to them through Vella's wrath.

"Prepare to fire. Brace for recoil!" I said with relish, finally allowing Vella to speak her wrath yet again. Looking down to Luxx I nodded for him to engage the firing mechanism and to confirm the kill, knowing already that Vella would commit to her work loyally. "Luxx, find me a new target! Vella hungers for more as do I."

"There are none sir. The auspex reads clear. _Solemn Voice_ and _Brink of Damnation_ report the same. I'd say we've done quite well for ourselves today. Four more scouting parties turned to smoke and scrap." Luxx replied with an audible sigh of relief, he always was an easy going bastard. I suppose that's why he'd survived so long. Not this time though, this time he was different…tense I should say. He had a right to be, since we were technically behind the enemy's lines, if there are such things in dealing with the barbaric Orks. No tactics you see, none at all. They'll flock to the most violent blood soaked battle they can find. Then they'll pour as many of their number as they have and keep them coming until there's nothing left to smash, mutilate or pillage and move on to the next battle. Even one small brawl between two roughly even platoons could soon turn into a pitched battle with increasing numbers of men and resources committed to the battle. Attrition, that is in the simplest term we learned to describe a war with the Orks, it's what we learned all too well.

"Very well Luxx…Tell Dorben and Massus to put the flame to whatever remains are found and return to supply drop secundus." Disrupt and hinder any and all supply efforts by the Orks, through any means necessary. That was direct from the Lord General himself, sent to our Regimental commander, and then sent down through the companies. Our specialty, as I've stated, was hunting. I suppose the Lord General understood that quite well. So there we were, dropped behind enemy lines and relying upon supply drops with updated data slates to give us directions for our next target and supply point. Many of you who read this are probably thinking that we were mad dropping behind enemy lines. The truth is it was the best way to fight the orks. If you starve them and keep them penned up, pretty soon they'll be setting upon each other instead of us and the Rest of the Imperial Guard who have been dealt a poor hand in the game of life and have found themselves stuck in a situation you can't win by normal tactics.

"Aye sir, message sent and received. Shall we be off then?" Luxx said rather hastily, which in the case we were in, made me worry.

"We'd best be…Corporal Banks, get us moving. Stoygo, Brenner, get your hatches open and let's get some fresh air in here." I sighed as I cracked my own hatch, climbing up and taking a seat upon the hatch rim, I couldn't help but look about my surroundings yet again. Nothing but rock and dust, and perhaps the occasional smoking wreck left behind by our dutiful work. There wasn't much else for me to look at. This world had to have the bleakest and most repetitive landscape I had seen throughout my career. I wasn't near the mountains, no, I was far to the north in the dune seas of Strenovar…Nothing but sand and dust, and perhaps the occasional rock to break up the monotony of it all. I and the rest of my platoon of three tanks were stuck here on this planet, and we had become accustomed to the scenery which I it provided us. So all I had to do was watch as my other two tanks rolled off to burn whatever remains they could find. I never understood why we do it, but as far as I know, if we torch the Ork corpses, fewer seem to pop up the next time we're around. I guess I wasn't so lucky this time.

"Sir! New contacts are inbound! _Brink of Damnation_ reports that she's already under intense fire! _Solemn Voice_ has already taken damage to her left sponson. It was a trap sir! Those bloody greenies laid a fraking trap for us!" It didn't take long for me to realize what Luxx was reporting to me was true as a particularly ugly specimen of the enemy seemed intent on ripping my head off with its bare hands as it clawed its way up the back of Vella. Now I'm not one for close combat, far from it, I prefer to keep at least 60mm of good solid steel between me and whatever I'm fighting. In this case it was just pure luck that the damn idiot of an Ork didn't realize what I was holding in my hands at the time. I never left Vella unarmed. I learned my mistake after my first year in the Guard, and I was intent on never repeating that experience. I did what came natural to any well trained and battle tempered man, I unclipped my holster and pulled out the bulky Bolt Pistol I'd become so bloody attached too over the years and gave that ugly frakker the nastiest sneer I could work up before I pulled the trigger and watched as one of the rocket propelled rounds punched through that thick chunk of bone that Ork called a skull. Normally an Ork can take an ungodly amount of damage before he dies and even then you normally have to point the damn wounds out for him to realize it. This bastard seemed to have been the exception to the rule as he dropped down onto the back of Vella's hull, a huge smoking crater all that remained of the left side of his face.

As I climbed back into the turret hatch I looked down at Luxx, who looked on the verge of saying his last rights and blowing his brains out, which made me more terrified by the second. It's perfectly reasonable in a situation like we were in for a man to be terrified, but not when that man needs to act, and right then, I needed Luxx to act, not sit at his station pissing his bloody pants. "Luxx! You grox humping moron! Snap out of it! Find us a target! Stoygo, Brenner, watch for ground pounders! I just shot a greenie trying to deliver flowers through the back door and I don't need one of those bastards leaving us a nasty surprise on the side of our turret!" I was worried about what in the Orkish language, is referred to as a "Tank Busta," suicidal Orks who are willing to run up to the tank and slap a magnetic explosive to the side of an armored vehicle.

Stoygo nodded in silent acknowledgment of my orders and began to hunt out the smaller, fleshy targets of our Enemies. Allowing me to feel slightly more reassured as I heard his bolter start to chatter away at enemy Targets. Brenner seemed another story entirely, trapped or too terrified to even depress the firing stud on his weapon, the only thing I could hear from his mouth was his repeated prayer of deliverance to the emperor, at least until I heard Banks' voice from the drivers position shout out about just what had my right sponson gunner so frozen. "Canners!!" That single word, passed down by hunters past in our regiment, means terror and death to any guardsman. I didn't know much about most of my crew aside from Luxx. It's not because I didn't care, it was because in the Imperial Guard, soldiers are a dime a dozen and during one's time in the service he'll most likely see hundreds if not thousands of individuals. Brenner, Stoygo, Banks, even Steggs, none of these men meant much of anything to me. Only Luxx and I were familiar with every bolt nook and cranny in Vella, these four men were strangers to us, nothing more than meat for the eternal grinder that is war.

So I couldn't believe it at first, not until I looked at the pict feed in my position. Killa Canz as the Orks call them. Perversions of the Imperium's Dreadnoughts, an armed and walking sarcophagus containing the barely living remains of a Space Marine. The biggest problem with the Ork's version, there are always dozens more of them, and they're just as bloody deadly as the Space Marine's entombed warriors. Walking cans of metal with giant saw blades and barely workable arms that seem like they shouldn't even be working are what Canners are. Nothing more than a flimsy hulk of metal parts that really shouldn't be working. I guess that's another thing we can give to the Orks. They can make anything work. I didn't have time to reflect on this though, I needed Brenner to start tearing those damn things apart. So I started kicking at Brenner, shouting, shoving, anything to snap him out of it. But it was all for naught, by the time I got him to finally react one of those bloody Canners had gotten too close. We could all hear the saw blade as it tore away at Brenner's station, ripping a hole right into the top of the sponson and plucking poor Brenner out through the ragged hole.

The next thing to be heard were Brenner's last words, or screams rather. There's nothing worse in this universe. I don't care what you bring up against me. The screams of a dying man is the worst thing one will ever hear. For me though, there was no time to grieve, no time to be scared, only time to act. The least I could do at this point was take Brenner's position, at least then I could keep myself busy, keep the threat of pissing my pants at bay. Keep myself alive…

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Author's Note:

Right, well here's my first issuance of a story in...god has it really been four years? Checks the amount of dust on his account Yup, that's about right. Well anyhow, this started out as an idea for a college class project and it's turned up here. So far my friends have enjoyed it and I've enjoyed writing it. Though I don't know where I'm gonna go with this yet, I'd at least enjoy getting some feedback on this beauty. And if anyone really has to know, yes...I am planning on building Vella herself. Anyhow! Please read and review as always! I love reviews, I crave them, I starve for them so yeah...please feed the scary monster in the corner with his laptop.


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